Special Features

2. Salad

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Salad as a first or second course is acceptable, but salad as the main course says more about you as a man than the fact that your belt doesn’t match your shoes. It says you’re either worried about your weight (and the last thing she needs is another person in her life with a weight issue) or it could mean that you really are a complete hog but you’re trying to look civilized. Salad prevents you from pigging out on a large dinner, chomping on a T-bone or licking a plate during the main course. It’s also ridiculously boring. Part of the fun of eating out is sampling each other's meal. You can’t really say: “Wow, try this lettuce. It’s amazing.”

What she will think of you: A man getting a salad means he is either incredibly vain, incredibly cheap or dirt poor. None of those are attractive qualities in a partner. She wants a man who eats more than her -- or at least more than the animals in her backyard.